G I have been collecting teddy bears since the end of 1969 when I read Peter Bull's book "THE TEDDY BEAR BOOK". When I could not find Teddy Bears, I looked for related items. One day, when I was looking through a stack of old, turn-of -the-century Teddy Bear postcards, I found some with Gollies on them, declaring that 'Golli' was 'Teddy's best friend'. At that moment, the thought went through my head that any friend of Teddy's is a friend of mine, and I went in search of a Golli to go with my hug of bears. Once one Golli was brought into the Teddy collection, more soon followed, until I found myself engrossed in collecting Gollies, as well as Teddies. After all, you can't have too many best friends!

Finding Golli and Teddy postcards is not easy. The more I would ask for them, the higher the prices became. Luckily, I have a wonderful penpal in England, Rose Wharnsby, who is a longtime postcard collector, and she has supplied me with lovely color photos of her Golli postcards. Rose has written a number of articles on old Teddy Bear postcards for the English Teddy Bear magazine, Hugglets, but to my knowledge, she has never written anything about Golli postcards. Perhaps that is something we can look forward to.......a nice Golli postcard article from Rose,

One of my favorites among Golli cards is one showing a Teddy, kitten and Golli. It is a birthday greeting which reads: "Birthday Greeting- - Many happy returns of the day, A wish both real and true; May good fortune come your way, And always be good to you." The card illustrates three of my passions: Teddies, Cats and Gollies!

Golli, along with his Teddy friends and other toys, has appeared on all kinds of postcard greetings, including Christmas, birthday, friendship, get-well and 'missing you'. I have examples in Spanish, French and German, as well as English. The array of interesting scenes is endless. Some of my favorites are: at the beach, playing nurse, off to war, sleepy time, taking a bath, going for a stroll, in a rainstorm, meeting Santa, playing school, off to Scotland, having tea, summer in the park, Punch 8c Judy puppetry and wishing on a star.

Although many Golli postcards were produced, evidently not many have survived. This is apparent from the lack of supply, and the high asking prices.